A Long Weekend

So this week was quite a busy week, and it flew by quickly! This weekend was full of a couple different events at church, and of course there was lots of food. There always is, and it is always good food! Anyway, I tried to stay away from anything really bad for me, but I will admit that I didn't do my best. I went off the record for the weekend and that alone scared me... I had a feeling that when I weighed myself this morning I would have gained.

But, I did not. :) I actually lost a pound. Not the 3 that I had wanted, but still awesome for all the extra food I had this weekend. Plus, I shrunk another 1 1/2 inches total! I feel great, and I think my body is finally reacting to my new routine.

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Kyle had an interview at W.B Mason last week, which all happened so quickly! He called one day, they called back the next, and the third day he had an interview! We are waiting to hear back and are praying that he will get the driving position... we really need a new job and this would be perfect. Kyle's brother works at W.B Mason and has recommended him to the company several times, so he has a good chance of getting in. The waiting is always the hardest part...

So excited about fall just around the corner. Yesterday after church, we met up with my family in Shrewsbury to shop at Christmas Tree Shop. I picked up a few things to decorate for fall. It's always fun to find deals there. Then we headed to Northborough Crossing to shop at a few places there. We enjoyed being out as a family. Shopping is also a lot of fun when you come away with really good deals! :)

Easy Weeknight Meal

Below is a picture of our dinner tonight. This meal is super duper quick and one of our favorite weekday meals. It's so simple, yet my husband comments on it every time saying it is one of his favorites! It's basically our "burger" night, without all the carbs and calories. Here's how I make it:

- Turkey or chicken burgers (no bun)

- small slice of low-fat cheese

-Asian coleslaw

 (slaw mix, good seasons italian dressing, soy sauce, sugar, dried cranberries)

-Cape Cod low-fat chips 

I season the turkey burgers with an applewood rub and just fry them in a little olive oil in a pan. They stay really moist! The slaw is just a bagged coleslaw mix with Good Seasons Italian salad dressing, low sodium soy sauce, sprinkle of sugar and dried cranberries. It is sooo good! Kyle likes me to make his slaw the good old fashion way, which I really love too. The asian style is just so good though! The Cape Cod chips are kettle cooked and really aren't nearly as bad for you as many other brands. I had one serving of reduced fat, because what is a burger without chips or fries? Haha. All in all, this is a really yummy meal and just as satisfying as something with twice the calories. If you wanted to be even healthier, you could leave off the cheese and substitute the chips for something else.

Might I add, this is really inexpensive too! :) A package of Turkey or Chicken Burgers can vary in price depending on the store, but I bought a Shady Brook pack of four today for $2.29!

Anyway, just wanted to share! I love to cook and come up with new twists on things. My husband appreciates it too! ;)

Enjoy your evening,

One Month Mark

It's been exactly one month since I first measured myself and began working toward my new goal. Seems like I just started! Last week could have gone better, but life happens and there's not much you can do about that! So I was only able to make it to the gym a couple times last week, but I did make up for it a bit with getting exercise in other ways.

Come Saturday morning I started getting blurry vision and a headache. If anyone has had that before you know what's coming next: a migraine. Only, I seem to get really weird things with it like numbness on one side of my body. All of a sudden my hand and arm got numb and tingling and it began to work its way up to my face and ended with my tongue. Scary. But this type of thing has happened to me before, so I knew all I needed to do was take pain relief and sleep it all off. Talk about a crappy way to spend a Saturday! I didn't stick well to my diet that day, sadly. Kyle took me to work with him that night so I didn't have to be alone, and we kinda got a few treats. ;) I slept through Sunday morning, which was weird not going to church… But I needed rest.

All this to say… Even though I had a crummy weekend and didn't stick to my diet, I lost two more pounds! Last week I only dropped 1. After measuring myself today, I have lost 6 1/2 inches total and 7 pounds! I wanted to lose 10 pounds in a month, but I'll take 7. ;) I'm almost there though, so that's exciting!

This week is going to be better. I hope to drop those last three pounds… A big goal for one week, but it's possible. I just have to make sure I keep eating… And work out harder.

That's it for now! I'll blog again soon. Have an awesome week and enjoy this gorgeous weather!

Life

Thought I would switch it up a bit and write about something more than just health and fitness. Lol. Our life has been a little bit of a rollercoaster ride over the last year... I'm grateful for it all though, because I really believe that trials can make us stronger if we are willing to have the right attitude and outlook through it all. Granted, I am not at all perfect in any way, and I very often find myself reacting rather than acting, but it has definitely grown me! When we look back on our lives, we often have that light bulb moment where we suddenly realize WHY it all happened... I love those moments. Anyway...

My husband has always wanted to be a Trooper for the Maine State Police. Ever since I met him, I knew from the beginning his goal in life. It never changed once in all the time I have known him. And from what people have told me, since he was very young he had always said that's what he would do. Kyle has been working over the last 2 years to get into the state police. That required passing many tests and even going through a Law Enforcement Pre-Service program. He made it all the way to the Colonel's interview, which was such an amazing thing! He basically was just a step away from his dream when he missed the PT by 2 seconds on the timed  running... I'm not going to lie, that day was one of the hardest, most discouraging days. I was ready to move, we had invested a lot of time and money into the whole hiring process, we put our lives on hold to get to this point, etc. But God has a plan for all of it. We've gone on with our lives and are trying to make some changes to hold us over until we begin the process again. We have to wait six months to apply again, and it will take another 6 months go through the process again...

I don't say any of this to complain. I know that I only have a few followers on my blog that read my long-winded posts, but I thought it might be helpful to share what has gone on in the last little bit. It might make more sense as to why we are still living in MA.

Since Fall is right around the corner, I am filling my schedule so I can keep busy. I'll be teaching at JOY Club each week on a rotating schedule, and am also starting up another housecleaning job. I am really excited about the autumn season! It's my FAVORITE time of year and I can't wait for the cool weather, the changing leaves and apple picking, above all. :) I plan to do some canning, which I am looking forward to as well. I have many, many plans, but for now I will spare you all. Hehe.

I'm happy to share that I am doing pretty well with my calorie counting and gym visits. It is very hard to not become discouraged with it all, I'll admit. I have my complete "slump" days where I want to give up and eat a whole entire pint of Ben & Jerry's and binge on whole bag of Cape Cod chips. Haha. But I haven't. :) Pinterest is a good way every so often to re-motivate myself to keep going. I search under fitness and am ready to go. Sounds pretty silly, but it's true.

I'm interested to see what the scale says this weekend... and especially what my measurements are! Seems like I am losing many more inches than pounds. I tried a homemade General Tso's chicken this week, which came out amazing and is surprisingly low in calories. It was excellent on top of brown jasmine rice. I can share how I made it if you're interested.

I need to end this before I start needing to split this up into chapters. Ha!
Thanks for reading,

Good Foods

So I'm at my parent's right now, and am able to upload some photos... 

Half an apple, natural peanut butter and a ricecake. This is a yummy snack and sure to satisfy your sweet craving. I love the chocolate chip ricecakes because they have very little calories, so I can have my chocolate without overdoing it!

One of my breakfasts... whole grain toast with natural pb and sliced bananas, peach yogurt and coffee. I love that the yogurt has only 70 calories. It is sweetened with Stevia and is fat free. 

Where is my energy?!

It's only Tuesday, but... My energy has been nowhere in sight  and I feel exhausted. I'm really wondering why I am feeling this way when my diet and lifestyle hasn't changed. Maybe it is just the fact that I'm a woman and my body frequently feels the need to act up for no apparent reason . Anyway, I figured I would post a couple pictures of some good, healthy things I have come up with that seem to fill me up and not pile on the calories.
A breakfast that has a good amount of protein is: whole grain toast with Teddie's natural pb with flax, topped with sliced bananas. Yogurt on the side and a cup of coffee if I'm feeling the need. The grains and protein keep me full, and the yogurt is always Yummy and good for my tummy. :)
The other is a snack that I had today that was just what I needed to give me a boost. Right around midday I am feeling pretty rundown - the typical female thing. I peeled and sliced an Apple (today I used granny smith) and scooped out some pb to dip them in. I normally try to buy organic, but sometimes it is not always possible. So I peel my apples when they aren't organic because of the pesticides. I ate a chocolate chip ricecake with the apples, just because I felt like it. ;) It seemed to go.
I also went to the gym today after a long day of cleaning and organizing the house, laundry, etc. I was already tired after the cleaning, but I went to the gym anyway. I did 50 minutes of a mix of things and believe me, tonight I am ready to collapse! I feel like because I am so tired this week my whole health and weight loss challenge seems to be on the back burner. But hopefully I snap out of this. If anyone has any comments or suggestions for me, I am happy to hear them. I'm still working on good snack ideas, so let me know if you know of any new ones for me!
I know my pictures won't post like I want them to since I'm on my phone, but you get the idea. :)

Hoping to get some good rest,
Amelia Jean

OK. Forget the pictures in this post... I am not able to load my post with the pictures attached. Sorry!

Slow Going

Today being Saturday, I decided to weigh in this morning. Since I normally allow myself a little "cheat" day on Satudays, I figured it might be best to do it this morning instead of waiting until Monday. While doing lots of research, I have found that it is a necessity to have a cheat day... not really to feed my hormones with chocolate and fattening things, but so my body doesn't just shut down. I chose Saturdays to be my cheat days, but I'm sure this will change occasionally with the holidays coming in a few months. These days don't include binge eating, but I do treat myself to a little more than usual and give myself a little break of not being so hard on myself! That was a mouthful. Anyway, back to my weigh in.

I was sooo discouraged when I found my weight hadn't moved ONE BIT since Monday. I was like, how on earth could that be since I worked out almost all 5 days this week and ate so well?!?! I was about to get discouraged about it, when I decided to measure myself based on some measurements I took at the beginning of this whole thing. It boosted my spirits a little to find that I had lost 1/2inch in three different places and more than one inch in another!

It's a slow process, but slow and steady wins the race. I hope that by next weekend I can drop some weight, but we will see.

That's all for now. Hopefully more good news soon!

Success is Sweet

To continue off of my last post, I am going to just share how my first week (last week) went with my new health and fitness challenge. If I wait for a time to go somewhere where there is internet so I can use my laptop to post, it won't happen for a while. It's true. It won't! So please excuse any spelling errors that my phone thinks is correct that really is not... That I don't catch. :)
My first week in the challenge, I found a really awesome app on my phone called: myfitnesspal. It has a database with millions of different foods that you can search so you can find out how many calories is in that particular food. You can also scan barcodes on products! Way cool. I set up my weight and my goal and it gave me a calorie intake plan based on that. You can also add exercise to your "diary" so it adds more calories when that is necessary. It seems awful low, but it has me at 1,200 calories a day. I have even been under that amount, but believe me, I am eating and not starving! Proteins have been essential to keep me fueled, and a good higher calorie breakfast is really important!
I actually feel the best I have in a really long time. Part of that I know is because I am more focused and am seeing results. If you actually counted how many calories you ate before calorie counting, you would be totally shocked. I am completely full from what I am eating now, yet to imagine all the unnecessary calories I was eating before that I really didn't need... It's amazing. And not in a good way!
I'm also exercising. Kick butt exercising. Really. I want so bad to be slim and healthy again that when my legs burn or my lungs hurt, I keep pushing because I want to be better. And when I push myself, the burning stops soon after and I can walk away from that elliptical with a smile on my face! The gym is amazing. I love going with my husband and working beside him when he isn't weight lifting. A little of the stair stepper, a little of the bike, some elliptical, and I am drenched it sweat. It feels good! Mentally it is nice at the end of the day to say I have gotten good exercise. It does wonders for stress and improves your mood if you are having a hard day. Better than taking your stress out on someone you love!
So my first week wasn't drastic, but I dropped 3 pounds! This week I am working out more, so I hope to see more off when I weigh in on Monday. I love having this goal, and I am really driven this time to not quit after two weeks. My family is astounded and my husband is always encouraging.
I would recommend to anyone to start eating better. Whether for weight loss or not, you will feel soo much better. And exercise- I believe that is a huge reason why  I always felt so sluggish all the time.
So, just wanted to share a bit of success and glimmer of hope for a better lifestyle all around! More later. I hope to post some ideas that have been working for me later on once I get a good grasp on this. Goodnight, guys. :)